Let’s take a look around the AFC West as the Chiefs and Chargers stumble, the Raiders rise, and Denver gets its first win of the season.
Welcome back to another episode of Around the AFC West as we look back at the strange results of Week 5 and look ahead at Week 6 for the Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, and Denver Broncos.
It was certainly an odd week in the AFC West. I went 0-4 on my predictions, so basically don’t use me if you try and gamble. Everything was upside down in terms of what we thought we knew about each and every team in the West.
Regardless, let’s dive in.
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders traveled to cheery London to take on the Chicago Bears. Despite the loss of Mitch Trubisky (who is out for a few weeks with a shoulder injury), I strongly believed the Bears defense would harass Derek Carr all day and maybe force a few tears. Boy, was I wrong. The Raiders offensive line held up against Khalil Mack in his revenge game and Carr looked great.
With an incredibly injured wide receiver group (and one missing Antonio Brown as well), the Raiders didn’t miss a beat. Josh Jacobs ran his butt off and Darren Waller led an impressive tight end group. While the final score made this game seem very close, the Bears never really seemed to find their groove. The Raiders, of course, kept it interesting with untimely turnovers, but ultimately won, 24-21.
An interesting game for sure given that we just can’t seem to figure out what this Raiders team is. Are they good? Are they lucky? My suspicion is that if the offensive line continues to play well blocking for Carr and the wide receiver group starts getting healthy, we are looking at a sneaky team. Carr has chemistry with Waller and Tyrell Williams. Josh Jacobs is the real deal. It will be interesting to see what this team looks like in the next few weeks. I suspect we may be looking at the AFC West’s runner up.
The Raiders also came out of this game with no new injuries. This is no small feat. While Jacobs did leave the game at one point with an elbow injury, he returned and appears to be fine. The Raiders are now entering their bye week (since they had an international trip) so they have a week now to get healthy. The Raiders have also added some wide receiver help. In a trade with the Buffalo Bills, the Raiders acquired Zay Jones. It will be interesting to see how Jones fits into the offense.